


The Marvelous Adventures of a Rocking Chair

by ipwnyourmother (hepaticas)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-09-18
Updated: 2010-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 03:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hepaticas/pseuds/ipwnyourmother
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does it have to be a rocking chair? Rocking chairs are so… domestic. - The Doctor and Rose in the TARDIS with a rocking chair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_POV: First Person as told by Amy Pond._

There is a rocking chair in the TARDIS library. It's a simple wooden thing that one might not notice if not for the bright pink cushion tied onto it by four pink ribbons, each one tied in a neat bow. The chair stands alone in a corner of the library – there's no other furniture around it and whether this is by some intentional design or not, I can't say. The chair does not match any of the other décor in the grand room. The library is all metal shelves and sleek lines and complex modern furniture that you have to struggle to sit on comfortably… And here is this chair, all wooden and carefully carved, standing out in its simplicity.

When I first arrived on the TARDIS, I assumed it was just a favorite of the Doctor. It was easy enough to believe – nothing else about him made sense, so why shouldn't his favorite chair be a rocking chair with frilly pink bows? It seemed that my theory was confirmed when, upon looking at the newly rebuilt library for the first time, he spotted the chair and his lips stretched into a smile that I now know as the smile he often wears when thinking about his past. After a moment, he looked away from it, but not before stroking the wall affectionately and thanking the TARDIS for keeping the chair around.

The thing is though, he never sits in it. Sometimes he sits  _near_ it and occasionally, if you watch, you can catch him looking at it thoughtfully, but he never, ever sits in it.

And he doesn't seem to like other people sitting in it, either; once, when Rory and I were doing some research in the library, the Doctor came in to find Rory sitting in the chair. He looked so completely horrified that Rory, without really knowing why, stuttered his apologies and moved to sit somewhere else.

It's funny. I've never been on to hold my tongue about things. In fact, it's usually quite the opposite. If I want to know something, I come right out and ask, no matter what. But that chair… So many times, I've wanted to ask the Doctor about it, to demand to know why it's significant to him, but every time, I've stopped, asked him something else, covered up my original question with a question about whatever alien planet we're visiting next.

It's like I know, without even having to ask, that that chair is off limits. That asking would just cause trouble. So I don't ask, I don't say anything, I don't even glance pointedly at it when he's in the room…

But sometimes I still wonder about that chair.

I still wonder, but I'll never ask.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a rocking chair is acquired.

_POV: First person as told by an unnamed shopkeeper._

I remember them well – the Doctor and Rose. Not just because they saved my shop and my family from angry aliens, either. I mean, obviously that's a big part of it; those – what did the Doctor call them? Vultanians? Vuranians? Vurmanians? I don't remember anymore. Regardless, they were terrifying and the leader kept talking about eating my wife's nose… So obviously, that's a big part of the reason I can't forget them, even if it's been a few years now.

But mostly… mostly I remember them because of who they were. Because of how they were with each other.

I remember after all of it was over – after the Doctor and Rose had taken care of the aliens and come back to say goodbye – I told them they could have their pick of the furniture in my shop. Anything they wanted, completely free, for as long as I lived. The Doctor just smiled and said, "Oh, no, thank you, we couldn't…"

Rose, on the other hand, got so excited. She tugged on his arm cheerfully, grinning up at him as she bounced through the store towards a rocking chair in the back corner. It wasn't extravagant or anything like that – it was just a wooden rocking chair. My wife had made it, along with several others just like it, all of them lined up in the back. This particular rocking chair was probably the simplest of the bunch. Even its cushion was the simplest – while the rest all had intricate patterns on them, this one was simply plain pink plaid.

From where I was standing, I heard the Doctor groan. "No." He said simply, staring at the chair like its very existence was mildly offensive to him. "No, Rose. Don't even think about it."

But Rose persisted, swaying back and forth slightly as she clung to his arm and grinned up at him. "Please, Doctor?" She said, tugging slightly at the fabric of his pinstripe suit. "Come on, please?"

He glanced down at her and then quickly looked away, turning his gaze on everything but her. She rested her chin on his shoulder, biting her lip as he grinned. Groaning again, he said, "Does it have to be a rocking chair? Rocking chairs are so… domestic." He wrinkled his nose for a second on the last word.

"Oi!" Rose said, leaning back and smacking his arm. "I  _like_ rocking chairs! My mum used to have one in my bedroom. Sung me to sleep in it every night when I was little."

The Doctor let out a loud guffaw. "'Course she did. That's what I mean. Domestic." There was a moment's pause, during which Rose just stared at him, still grinning and swaying back and forth, and then – "Oh, alright! We'll take the chair!"

They left the shop soon after that, the Doctor struggling to carry both the rocking chair and the several large containers of homemade food my wife had given them as thanks, while Rose bounced along happily in front of him.

I never saw them again after that.

But I did wonder sometimes, what happened to the Doctor, the rocking chair, and the golden haired girl who convinced him to take it.


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor is sick.

_POV: Third person._

The Doctor was sick. It had started out as just a cough. Rose had told him then to take it easy, but no, he'd sworn up and down that Timelords didn't  _get_ sick, and he'd just  _had_ to take them to a planet where it rained non-stop and there was a warrant out for his arrest, so of course they'd ended up booking it through the rain, and now he had the flu. The flu! Rose was thoroughly annoyed. Honestly, what good was a time machine if the only person who could fly it was using a box of tissues a day and running to the bathroom every half hour to empty the contents of their stomach?

Of course, it wasn't like she didn't feel bad for him. He was absolutely pitiful when he was ill. He lay about, moaning and groaning and clinging to a teddy bear Rose had lent him like it was somehow going to restore his health magically – that was probably Rose's fault, actually. She'd told him that when she was young and got sick, cuddling her teddy always made her feel better, just like magic, and he'd immediately demanded she provide him with a teddy that instant.

A week had passed since he'd fallen ill and as time went on, he'd become more and more annoying. He made ridiculous demands of her – rub my shoulders, get me new socks, find me a blanket with a more cheerful pattern, make me tea, cut up a banana for me, juggle these, find this, sniff that, taste this… At first she'd put up with it, because he was her Doctor – did she say hers? She meant  _the_  – and he was ill, and she was sorry.

But now it was just getting ridiculous. The night before he'd demanded she sing him a lullaby and only that morning he'd asked her to dig through his bigger-on-the-inside cupboards until she found Vaseline, and had neglected to mention that also contained in said cupboards was a large, slimy slug that could talk and would insist on telling Rose its life story before unwinding itself from around her finger.

She got the feeling he was just telling her to do things to amuse himself now and she wasn't having it anymore. If it was amusement he was after, she would make sure he got it.

So, around noon, she marched into his bedroom with her hands on his hips and looked at him very seriously.

"Alright then," She said, "Enough of this. Up. Come on."

He groaned and rolled over, burying his face in his pillow to shield his eyes from the light that had spilled into the room when Rose opened the door. "Don't feel good." He muttered, his voice muffled by his pillow.

Rose had to bite back a laugh at this, the Oncoming Storm, curled up beneath his quilt and complaining like a little boy. Smiling in spite of herself, she took a few steps towards him and leaned over to rub his back gently with one hand. "I know, Doctor." She said in her best mama-duck voice, "But we're gonna go down to the library, okay?"

At the mention of the library he perked up slightly, lifting his head and looking up at her. "Library?"

Rose gave a quiet 'mmm' of confirmation. "Come on, Doctor. We'll bring your blankets and go to the Library and read for a bit. That'll be nice, right?" Again, she had to bite back a laugh, this time at how incredibly condescending she sounded. He didn't seem to notice though, because he just sat up slowly, wrapped his quilt around his shoulders and slowly climbed out of bed so that he was standing beside her.

He looked completely ridiculous, standing there. He lips were pulled down into something that might have been a grimace or just a frown. His eyes were bloodshot, the tip of his nose bright red from sniffling and sneezing, and his hair stood up in every direction, making him look a bit like an unhappy hedgehog.

"Handsome as ever…" Rose said, her lips pulling up into a cheeky grin. In response, the Doctor sniffled once, pulled his quilt tighter around him and shuffled off past her. Still grinning, Rose snatched his box of tissues from the nightstand and followed.

Upon reaching the library, the Doctor promptly settled himself into the rocking chair in the corner, wrapped his blanket tightly around him and stared at Rose, as if waiting for her to tell him why they were here. For a moment Rose was struck by the thought that he looked a bit like a burrito, bundled up there, and this reminded her that she was really quite hungry for lunch and a burrito didn't sound half bad… Shaking her head, she turned her head back to the sick Timelord that was staring at her, looking pathetic.

"Well?" She said, trying to sound cheerful. "What do you want to read?"

The Doctor raised one eyebrow, blew his nose loudly into a tissue and said, "Harry Potter." Rose bit her lip as she looked around the vast room for some clue as to where that would be. After a moment, the Doctor looked at her a like she'd just dribbled on her shirt and said, "That shelf over there."

"Right." Rose said, marching purposefully over in the direction he'd indicated. "Er… Which one do you want?"

Apparently too exhausted to speak anymore, the Doctor held up four fingers, and so Rose snatched the fourth book from the shelf. Humming to herself, she walked back to where he was sitting and dropped the book into his lap. "There you are. You enjoy that. I'm going to go make some tea."

And with that, she began to leave, only to be stopped by the Doctor saying her name. "Yeah?" She said, turning around to find him staring at her with something like distress and confusion in his eyes.

"I…uh… aren't you going to read to me?" Oh, he was so pathetic, her Doctor –  _the_ Doctor. All bundled up and ill and pitiful. How could she refuse him? She couldn't. He was her Doctor –  _the_ Doctor - and she couldn't.

Sighing, she grabbed a cushion from an arm chair and walked back towards him. "Yeah, 'course I am." She said, dropping the cushion at his feet and sitting on it. "Gimme that."

The Doctor, who was smiling now, took one hand out of his blanket to hand her the book, and Rose couldn't help but smile back, before licking her finger and flipping to the first page. After scanning the page briefly, Rose leaned back against the Doctor's legs and began rocking the chair slightly from where she was sitting. She was expecting him to protest, but when he didn't, she cleared her throat and began. "The villagers of Little Hangleton still called it "the Riddle House," even though it had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there…"

Hours later, a loud snore made Rose look up from her reading to find the Doctor out cold. She grinned at the Doctor –  _her_ Doctor – and slowly got to her feet, placing the book quietly on the end table by the rocking chair. "Night, Doctor." She said, still grinning as she leaned down to kiss his forehead gently.

And then she left him there to go out and find herself a burrito.


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the rocking chair isn't burnt.

_POV: Third person._

It was  _so cold._ Honestly, Rose was almost positive she was going to freeze to death. Actually, if not for the fact that the Doctor had given her his brown overcoat, she was pretty sure she would have frozen to death already.

There was something wrong with the TARDIS's heating system, apparently. The Doctor swore up and down he'd have it fixed in no time, but so far he'd done little good and seeing how he was currently curled up in a blanket beside her, his teeth chattering, she really doubted it. In all honesty, Rose didn't understand why they were even on board. Something wrong with the heating didn't mean they couldn't just fly it back to London so she could go to her warm bed with her mum, did it? Or maybe it did, she really didn't know, and she wasn't going to ask, because the answer was probably quite obvious and she didn't fancy having the Doctor look at her like a stupid ape.

The two of them were camped out in the library, because it was the only room in the TARDIS with a space heater. Why they couldn't just move the space heater to another room, Rose wasn't really sure. She suspected the Doctor just wanted to be with all his books and she wasn't complaining as long as she got to sit next to the heater – which she did, though the Doctor had put up a good fight for the spot.

Pulling the Doctor's coat tighter around her shoulders, Rose nodded at the fireplace in the wall a few feet away from them. "Why's that not lit then?" She asked, turning to look at the Doctor.

"No wood." He answered simply.

"But we could find some somewhere, right? I mean, there's gotta be something wood somewhere on board that we wouldn't mind burning…"

The Doctor's eyes drifted slowly towards the rocking chair where it sat in the corner.

"Oh no!" Rose said quickly, seeing exactly what he was thinking. "Don't even think about it!"

"But Rose!" He said, his voice high and whiney, "A fire would warm us up so much! Don't you want to be warm?"

Rose's eyes narrowed. "You are not burning my rocking chair."

That was the wrong thing to say, apparently. The Doctor took that as a challenge. He leapt to his feet, discarding his blanket and taking three long strides over to the rocking chair. Rose, moving a bit slower, slipped her arms into the sleeves of his coat and chased him with a muted battle cry. He'd just pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his jacket when she threw herself onto his back.

"You are not burning my rocking chair!" She said again as she wrapped her legs around his waist from behind and held on tight.

The Doctor, taken by surprise, flailed his arms wildly for a moment in an attempt to catch his balance and then growled, "Watch me." As he began to lean over, apparently with the intention of taking the sonic to one of the chairs legs, Rose threw all her weight forward and the two of them toppled onto the floor. The two of them wrestled playfully for the sonic, both of them laughing and Rose shrieked occasionally when the Doctor resorted to tickling her sides in an attempt to win.

Finally, Rose managed to pin him down and pry the screwdriver from his hands. She gave a cheerful, "Ha!" And then she tossed the Sonic over her shoulder and out of her reach. The Doctor, feigning anger, shouted, "Hey!" And then, quite suddenly, he flipped them over so that he was on top.

Maybe he'd intended to tickle her more, or maybe he was just going to get up and go get his screwdriver, or maybe he hadn't actually known what he was going to do, but the second he found himself on top of Rose, what he  _did_ do was lean down and capture her lips with his. Rose made no protest, even when he lifted her up so that he could take his coat off of her, because now she wasn't cold at all and she didn't know how she'd ever even  _been_ cold in the first place. It wasn't long before their various articles of clothing were discarded around them and the two of them were panting in each other's arms and neither of them was even remotely cold.

Grinning, the Doctor propped himself up on his elbow and said, "Okay. I won't burn your rocking chair."

Rose promptly smacked him once before pulling his face down to hers again.

 


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose does something unwise.

_POV: Third person._

Rose Tyler was perched on the edge of a heavily padded armchair, her chin resting in her hand, her expression that of someone who had been watching someone else do something interesting for hours – which she had been, actually. For the last four hours, twenty two minutes and fifteen seconds, Rose Tyler had been watching the Doctor read. She'd been hoping he would eventually sense her boredom and suggest that they find some other way to research the aliens they were hunting. But, for those for hours, twenty two minutes and fifteen seconds, all the Doctor had done was turn pages and get up to choose new books.

She'd tried everything she could think of to get his attention. She'd sighed heavily, grumbled, 'accidentally' dropped the book she was supposed to be reading… But he'd barely even looked up at her. Now she'd basically given up. The library was silent as Rose watched the Doctor who was reading in the rocking chair –  _her_ rocking chair – and rocking back and forth slowly as he turned pages.

She was staring at him, her eyes out of focus, when she noticed the way his hips moved up just so every time he rocked forward. Eyes twinkling mischeviously now, she watched him more intently, her lips twisting up into a grin at the steady rhythm of his rocking. "Doctor…" She said, without actually looking up at him.

His only reply was to turn another page and give a quiet, "Mmm?"

"Doctor…" She said again, "I was thinking… That rocking chair could make things very easy."

"I don't follow." He said, still without looking up from his book.

"Well…" Rose said, standing up and taking a few slow steps towards him, "It's just, the rocking… The rocking could make things very easy."

This time he looked up at her, raising one eyebrow and opening his mouth as if to question her further – but then he caught on. "Rose," He said, his tone clearly scolding her. "Rose, no."

But Rose was not about to give in that easily. She took a few more steps toward him, still grinning mischeviously, and then she was standing right in front of him, her knees brushing his gently as he continued to rock. She didn't say a word as she took the book from his hands and climbed into his lap, she just continued to grin at him.

"Rose…" He said again, still clearly opposed to the entire situation.

"Don't be such a spoilsport, Doctor." And with that, she covered his mouth with hers. The kiss was frantic and needy and when she finally pulled away, both of them were breathing quickly.

"Rose," The Doctor panted, "We have work to do." But he didn't sound half as annoyed with her as he had before, and so just laughed and kissed him again and again and again, and the next time he said her name he wasn't telling her to stop.

The Doctor's lips were on her neck when Rose rolled her hips a bit wildly, rocking the chair more than she'd intended to and then, quite suddenly, the two of them fell off the chair and onto the floor with a loud thud. There was a moment where they were both quite still – and then the room was filled with the sounds of their loud laughter.

"That," Rose said as she tried to calm her laughter, "was not a good idea."

"No," Said the Doctor, who was grinning broadly. "You know what  _is_ a good idea though? Reading." He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and then hopped up, grabbed his book from where Rose had put it, and settled in to read some more.

Rose groaned audibly and settled in where she was lying on the floor to spend another four hours, twenty two minutes and fifteen seconds doing nothing.


End file.
